Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Accusations of falsification being ramped up

Accusations and counter-accusations of cheating by the main political protagonists are reducing the chances of the September 30th VR elections being conducted fairly and producing a result that will be accepted by all participating parties - something that is being almost completely missed in articles on the elections in the Western press.

E.g. Minister of Internal Affairs, Socialist Vasyl Tsushko today declared, "The police has uncovered 3.5 million immigrant workers who have long-left Ukraine [on lists], but have constantly voted for someone...of those 2.5 million 'dead souls' are from western oblasts and 1 million from southern ones..Many parties counted [them up] and wept, because for some it led to a loss of 5% of votes in the elections."

According to the head the Ukrainian security services [SBU] department for fighting corruption and organized crime in the Kharkiv oblast, Andriy Mukhtayev, inaccuracies and errors in the lists of the voters of region are so widespread that they will be sufficient to distort the results of elections to 4.17%. 94,290 doubles have been discovered 'living' in the oblast, about 44 thousand of them in Kharkiv alone.

Lugansk elector lists seem to show 435 voters at the age of 100 years still live in the city.The SBU have established that in Kharkiv, the lists of voters included more than 2,000 persons aged 107 or older.

In Kyiv, where PoR have also accused the authorities of packing voter lists with 'dead souls' doubles etc.,the main political protagonists are already 'laying out their beach towels on the swimming pool loungers in the Maidan*'. PoR are setting up a big stage and large military-style tents in Independence square - BYuT are doing the same in St Sophia Square.

*Mediterranean holiday resorts are frequented by holidaymakers from many European and other countries during the summer. Traditionally it is the Germans who get up the earliest in the morning, even before breakfast, to place their towels on the best-placed loungers around the swimming pool.

LEvko thinks Ukraine's courts are going to be very busy after election day. Western media, e.g. Britain's 'Guardian' are overlooking the probability of a messy post-election period - political crisis is the default condition for Ukraine.